Now see, this is really really funny. That scene actually popped into my head as I was writing my response

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Nor did you highlight the small size of variation detected: 0.5% and .1%

I do not subscribe to the idea that a very small likely hood equals NO likely hood. I do understand that a very small % of variance is close enough to certainty to be able to make thinks work reliably. The phrase "Close enough for government work" comes to mind.

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You need an actual demonstrable effect before you start suggesting causes.

The effect is that there is something which seems to cause a very slight variation in the rate of decay of some isotopes. Is that not enough to start asking what and why?

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You saw what you wanted to see and tried to discredit or ignore the rest. Blatantly.

The answer to my question is a simple "no they are not completely isolated and unaffected". You could have used the exact same links to support that answer and provide examples. Instead, you chose to get snarky with me.

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I show affection for my pets by holding them against me and whispering, "I love you" repeatedly as they struggle to break free.

To within the margins of experimental error, it is unaffected by external factors.

If you think an external factor is affecting it, such as dark matter or demons, then the burden is on you to suggest a means for testing this.

It's not so much that I think any external factors are affecting the decay rates of certain materials. I wasn't even thinking about it this deeply when I first posted on this thread. Ironically, it was Cyberia's analogy that brought the question to my mind. Because there are several things that can affect a vehicles rate of travel, is there anything that might affect the rates of decay? If Cyberia had not offered that particular analogy I would not have asked that particular question.

I do not have the training or resources to suggest a means for testing. It is obvious from the links Cyberia provided that scientists have observed slight variations in the rate of decay. One group reexamined their previously published data to test for a correlation between the distance of the earth from the sun on six isotopes.

It is established that rates of decay vary slightly. What causes this variation? Is it the tools we use? Is it human error? We can now say that at least for six isotopes that it has nothing to do with the distance of the earth to the sun.

So, what's wrong with asking if it might be something like dark matter or dark energy?

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I show affection for my pets by holding them against me and whispering, "I love you" repeatedly as they struggle to break free.

You don't know of an effect of dark matter on regular matter, nor any way of testing it, nor any way of even sampling dark matter. Correct?

You also don't know of an effect of demons on regular matter, nor any way of testing it, nor any way of even obtaining a demon for study. Correct?

Dark matter is more a description of a real effect than an identified particle. Demons are also more a description of a real effect than an identified class of entities. Their effects include that much-publicized Haiti earthquake, and the recent Japanese nuclear disaster.

Without knowing how either actually work, positing either as an explanation for supposed changes in atomic decay rates is on-par.

Without knowing how either actually work, positing either as an explanation for supposed changes in atomic decay rates is on-par.

I see...but to be clear, I wasn't positing it as an explanation. I was asking if there was a possibility that something might be affecting the rate of decay for which we have not tested or even know much about. I see the problem with using dark matter as an example very clearly now.

I also thought to ask if black holes or alpha might have an impact on certain isotopes but didn't get around to it.

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I show affection for my pets by holding them against me and whispering, "I love you" repeatedly as they struggle to break free.

I see...but to be clear, I wasn't positing it as an explanation. I was asking if there was a possibility that something might be affecting the rate of decay for which we have not tested or even know much about. I see the problem with using dark matter as an example very clearly now.

Bringing it up in that context was positing it as a possible explantion.

The fine-structure constant. Because there is evidence that it may not be as constant as we think and it is my understanding that this constant affects pretty much everything in the universe. So I was wandering, if the constant varies then could that explain the variation we see in radio-active decay?

As for the black holes, yeah to far away for gravity but what about the gamma rays they emit?

It was my understanding that a black hole absorbed all the radiation it emitted (except for the theoretical Hawking radiation, which would be responsible for its eventual disintegration).

True regarding actually-emitted radiation, but not for all generated radiation. The acretion disc around a black hole contains super-heated and accelerated material that gives off X-rays; that's often how black holes are discovered in the first place.

True regarding actually-emitted radiation, but not for all generated radiation. The acretion disc around a black hole contains super-heated and accelerated material that gives off X-rays; that's often how black holes are discovered in the first place.

I read this entire thread and jays enlightenment trying to see where the godammed moon cratered DFW and then it happened... FTW..whatever the hell that is..I was hoping TBN in Irving got hit by the moon. WELL! Thank god they're all safe down there..

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You better believe it's not butter or you'll burn in hell forever and EVER! Get on your knees right now and thank GOD for not being real!

Probabilities mean nothing when talking about what CAN happen. If it can happen, it will. Here's a story about what awoke me to this:

I used to think that the probability of life forming on its own was too slim to be a reasonable assumption. And then one day I went outside to fly a kite with my oldest son. My youngest son tagged along.

We had a large farm with a nice open field, a Star Wars kite, 250 feet of string, and a beautiful, yet variably windy day. It was so windy, that it was hard to keep the kite in the air. But we tried anyway, the wind thrashing the kite around in random and rapidly changing arcs. We got it fully extended a couple of times, and often just a few feet.

The math said that there was pretty huge area in which that kite could crash. It could crash anywhere, really. So I wasn't worried about the kite coming down on my youngest son's head. It was too random, and he was just running everywhere, like a little maniac.

But the fact remained that he COULD have been hit with the kite. So...was he? You betcha. And not just once. Not just twice. Three times in just about 20 minutes. It was evidence that probability means nothing.

Need more proof? Fire up Netflix and watch some episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos. You'll see probability defeated over and over again as children hit a baseball just right as to whack their dad in the nuts. A frontyard golfer will eagle right into grandpa's head as he walks down the sidewalk. Over and over again, probabilities lose.

It's such a strong phenomena that when I arrived to the flag football field for a game last Saturday and saw that the adjacent baseball field was currently occupied by a game of collegiate baseball, I was hesitant to even play. What are the chances of one of them hitting a home run and striking one of us in the head? The fact that it was possible told me to be worried. Luckily, the game was last minute cancelled, and I didn't have to challenge probability.

Thanks for just throwing a link at me. It says "high degree of precision" which tells me that there is some wiggle room. Whoever submitted this article to wikipedia didn't even bother to offer a citation to back up his assertion. For all I know you could be the articles author.

...

This article only helps support my incredulousness. Was this your intent?

So lets make peace and I'll try to teach you, if you're willing to learn.

NO SEASONAL VARIATION HAS BEEN CONFIRMED.

A few teams reported such an effect, with a very small magnitude. The after those reports, two other teams specifically tested the claims of the first teams and found NO SEASONAL VARIATION AT ALL, and the second teams achieved substantially higher precision than ever before. The Oklo Reactor team can measure decay rates (and also alpha, the fine structure constant) back two billion years(!) and found no indication of a changing decay rate or a change in alpha. This also puts constraints on the amount of variation that is possible.

So there is no confirmed variation, and as such there is no need to look for a cause (of nothing)

Scientists are somewhat incredulous of such a seasonal effect, (like they were incredulous about the faster-than-light neutrinos) NOT because it violated their "worldview" but because it would mean than RETROACTIVELY experiments we have already performed and verified would be "wrong", and because from everything we know about physics, THE CLAIMED EFFECT CANNOT HAPPEN.

So, extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

The "seasonal-variation teams" did not provide such evidence, it didn't prove to be repeatable, nor did they suggest any mechanism for HOW such an effect could happen. AT BEST they found correlation, not causation.

Remember there isn't that much radioactive material on Earth, so it has a low cross-section compared to the planet. If the Gamma or X-ray flux was so high that it produced this effect in radioactive material, it would be TOTALLY wrecking havoc on the surface. We can measure their flux directly, we could see by-products of the collisions all around us, and we would be dying! This is not happening.

Neutrinos are a possibility, but they barely interact with matter, so an increase sufficient to cause this effect would mean A LOTTTTTTTT of extra neutrinos were coming from the sun. This would dramatically affect internal processes in the sun, and it probably isn't happening. We also have neutrino observatories and they don't report huge seasonal spikes.

Even if we did detect an variation...so what? Wouldn't that tend it average out with the seasons? For example: It goes up in March and down in October. So its sorta moot. But ok, lets say we detected it, and can measure it, we just figure it into the decay rates and although it changes they dates we thought were accurate, we have HIGHER confidence that the new value to correct. So the Earth is 99.5% (or 99.9%) as old as we though it was. Shrug.

There is a possibility something was detected, and of course one must leave the door open for new discoveries, but we must remain skeptical of claims that would dramatically wreck knowledge that has already been tested and confirmed. The team that found this MUST be doing something wrong, in their equipment or in their procedure. In other words, to overturn scientific consensus, you must convince that same scientific body BEYOND ANY DOUBT that you aren't making a mistake, that your effect is real.....and they haven't even come close to this.

I felt the post (below) was snarky and directed at me, so I threw it back at you.

Fair enough.

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So lets make peace and I'll try to teach you, if you're willing to learn.

Deal. I remember getting into a conversation with you some time ago about cosmology or physics or some such and I just kinda left off. It's heady stuff but I love it and always get back around to it eventually. There is an article I read recently that I wanted to discuss in detail but I think I will start a new thread for it.

As for the subject at hand, thank you very much for breaking it down for me in common language...makes much more sense. Not that I ever actually disbelieved it but I know that carbon dating is a common flash point for creationists to try to use as an "AH HA! Gotcha!" sort of argument against science[1]. That was not where I was coming from personally.